Some Muslims and all Non-Muslims with a pulse know that Islam has a problem with violent misogyny and intolerance. In fact, Islam has more than a problem with these vices; Islam glories in them. It does so because it insists on unalterable dogma that dates back to the 6thC of its inception. With a few minor tweaks in the intervening 14C, Sharia Law, the legal underpinning of Islam, remains to this day the wish bucket of a severely testosterone poisoned desert patriarchy.
Of course, Islam at certain times in the realms it overan, permitted the continued existence of certain religions " of the book ". These faiths, notably Judaism and Christianity, were allowed a beleaguered survival provided their adherents complied with the terms of dhimmitude that constrained their religious practice, their career opportunities and reduced their standing versus Muslim litigants to that of donkeys. It also made them fiscal milch cows. Again, at these times of circumscribed Islamic tolerance, Christianity was pretty well totally intolerant. The problem is that since then Christianity has had a few reforms and Islam none.
Just as the Vatican sets the mood music for Catholics, in the Vaticans of the Gulf and Iran the high clergy play and propagate the stone carved score of the 6thC. This Islamic Papacy that is the ultimate arbiter of Muslim behaviour treats all notions of reform and change as capital heresy to be stamped on without mercy. It is not therefore surprising that, with approval from on high, 2 million Animists and Christians can be butchered in the Sudan because they rejected Sharia law, women can be treated as third class cretins, homosexuals can be hurled off high rises and an Afghan can fight to the last bullet to prevent his daughters being educated. What is surprising and shocking is the abject failure of the West to denounce the grossness of present day Islam.
You would think that there is enough abuse of women everywhere on the planet without also allowing Islam's codified, legalised misogyny. How can it be acceptable for a Muslim man to divorce a wife and throw her out on her backside minus the kids by simply saying " I divorce you " three times? How can it be acceptable today for a woman's testimony in court to be worth a fraction of that of a man? There are many women imprisoned in Pakistan because they have been raped and are therefore deemed under Sharia law to be adultresses because they had sex outside marriage. In Pakistan adultery is a capital crime. How can the planet tolerate the execution of anyone, woman or man, who chooses to stop being a Muslim? The list of abominations sanctioned by Islam is long, shameful and totally out of step with the humanist progression that most of world now demands.
Why then is virtually nothing said to call out Islam? Why are there no loud voices demanding that Islam be reformed and made liberal and tolerant? The reason is that the civilised world consists roughly of four groups; the impotent masses, the scared who can't be got up off their knees, the paid off and the congenital appeasers. The paid off are those who for example sell torture instruments, arms, and solid gold bath tubs to the Saudis. The congenital appeasers are typified by the politicians, state functionaries and media folk who from Helsinki to L.A. will, after every atrocity like the Sudan, Twin Towers, Bali, Bataclan, Manchester, London and Nice etc,etc, raise their bullhorns to holler " This has nothing to do with Islam! " Really!?
The compulsion to absolve Islam of all blame, indeed to accuse those who dare to criticise Islam of racism, is pervasive amongst the bien pensants and their minions. This mind set is particularly revolting when it comes to dealing with the special contempt that too many Muslim men have for Non-Muslim women. Here we have the Stockholm police chief who felt able straight faced to declare that establishing the ethnicity ( religion ) of perps in sexual attacks at a festival was a no-no. " We don't go to these dark places! " So much for Nordic police investigative procedures. In the wake of several hundred sexual assaults committed by Muslim immigrants at a winter fair in her town, all the mayor of Cologne had to say was that German women should not wear "provocative" clothing. No doubt she would have liked the women of Cologne to only step out in burkas and in the company of a male family member. England, though, has by far the worst appeasement problem of all. For fear of loosing the political support of considerable Muslim populations, the authorities, social services and police, in towns up and down the country (Oxford, Derby, Rotherham, Newcastle, Telford ...) have turned a blind eye to the systematic industrial scale sectarian and racist paedofilia of Muslim gangs targeting non-Muslim girls. More often than not, if any police action was taken it was to describe the young victims as prostitutes. Rotherham alone, when forced to accept a public enquiry, revealed over 1500 cases. Here we have a senior police officer in that sad town who, when commenting on the case of a 12 year old non-Muslim who had been groomed, trafficked and raped over 50 times by a gang of Muslim men, declared that it was the girl's " life style choice ". Never mind that any sex with a girl under 16 is illegal in Britain.
This fear of telling it as it is, this fearful appeasement of Muslim communities allows the perps to have a whale of a time until they are finally brought to justice. The damage done by these depraved men also includes the besmirching of the Muslim community as a whole. The appeasement has to cease.
Calling to account and facing down an entrenched ideology that feels free to promote violent intolerance and misogyny and happens also to bathe in trillions of petro-dollars is daunting. We should though be of good heart. Nothing including Islam is beyond reform. We need to help Islam by robustly and loudly denouncing it's wrong doings. There are plenty of humane Muslims who know that the core Islam of today and yesterday is as damaging to themselves as it is to Non-Muslims. These Muslims need to step up and join us. As a matter of urgency, a platform for action should be organised.
It is not enough, as occurs in many Western countries, to simply try and divert adults and youths from the calls of extremism. To do this alone is no more that to don flak jackets in the face of incoming rockets. What is vital is that we direct our anger and demands at those who pay for an launch these rockets. This means that we need to challenge and call out directly the leading clergy of the Islamic Papacies of the Gulf and Iran. This is where the poison ultimately comes from. Until these toxic fountains are cleaned out to yield up tolerance and kindness alone, nothing will change.
